karthigai deepam recipes

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Podi idli, plain utappam, kuzhipaniyaram – savoury & sweet, keerai vadai, arisi paruppu payasam, sambar, coconut chutney and red chutney. I remembered something when I made this brunch. My mom had a brass plate that is called as “otrai idli thattu” which means single idli plate which is a tiffin plate size, slightly shallow with holes in it. We have to use a cloth to line it and pour batter to it and steam like a regular idli. I have had many times excitingly. Most of the time I would not finish though . Now I can eat 2 such idlies. It is something similar to the thatte idli, except this one is not flat, but shallow and just a bigger variation of our regular idli. I wish I had that idli plate.
How many variations we can make with this single idli dosa batter. Good old regular idli, podi idli, cocktail idli, thalippu idli, kaima idli, chutney idli, idli upma… Plain dosa, masala dosas, beetroot dosa, onion uttapam, plain uttapam made in kadai as you see in this post, kuzhipaniyaram and the list goes on with your creativity.
This post made after I got tempted by a photo that I saw in zomato under a restaurant review. The first thing I got tempted was the plain uttapam. Next is keerai vadai. Otherwise I changed the menu according to my convenience. I made this spread this friday, with vadai payasam special for aadi friday.
This post is just an idea for making an elaborate brunch, if you want to make it for some special occasion. Otherwise, you can take this as an idea and reduce the items according to your convenience. If you want to make this exact menu, note down the things that you can prepare and keep it ready in before hand to reduce your work.

This is just an idea on how I prepared this menu. For detailed individual recipes, please check the links below.

Idli dosa batter can be prepared a day or two days ahead and kept in fridge. With this batter, we can make idli, plain uttapam and kuzhi paniyaram savory with the same batter. I had idli dosa batter with me.

Same with sweet paniyaram batter, you can prepare a day ahead and keep refrigerated. I prepared the paniyaram batter the before day itself.

I prepared keerai vadai by soaking urad dal just for an hour and grinding it coarsely without water. So soak it before you start all the other process for this brunch.

Roast and pressure cook rice, dal for payasam in one container of the pressure cooker and dal for sambar in another container. (I keep tamarind also inside a small bowl in middle of dal for easy extraction of tamarind juice).

I made this keerai vadai, slightly different from the one I posted. This one is inspired from Chef Venkatesh Bhat's keerai vadai. That is I just soaked for an hour, ground really coarsely and added keerai, pepper, asafoetida and salt. Made thinly over a ziploc cover and fried in oil.
I made savory paniyaram with the idli dosa batter simply with mustard, urad dal, curry leaves and a dash of asafoetida.
Sweet paniyaram is karuppatti paniyaram, which I will post coming Wednesday.
I made my plain uttapams in my new iron kadai, which turned out super crispy, golden and tasty!